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World, and I think that did it. I read any Harlan Ellison I could find. I’m pretty sure there’s still a picture of me in my blue shag-carpeted bedroom reading Deathbird Stories in one of my mother’s scrapbooks, somewhere. Anyway, thanks to Harlan Ellison and Linda Carter and George Lucas and Virginia Cameron I made it through a difficult adolescence and in my early thirties I was living in San Francisco, where, as everyone knows by now, all the cool stuff happens. Ever since the days of the Barbary Coast, San Francisco is where you came to do your thing. And in 1994 I watched Harlan write “Keyboard” in the window of The Booksmith, and I stuck around long after the crowd dispersed that had gathered to watch Robin Williams give him the seed of the idea. Harlan, you see, de-mystified the process of entertainment for me, right then. He set up his 1959 IBM Selectric in the window of the shop (I know, that probably wasn’t the make nor model, but here’s a thing HE has taught me: a specific detail sets a mood and serves the story. I mean, c’mon, doesn’t “1959 IBM Selectric” put a taste on your tongue much more palat able than just the word “typewriter?” I ask you.), and called out for a name of one of the audience members. “Chris Hudak,” Chris Hudak said, and Harlan just started writing . If anyone has ever observed the process of writing, you’ll know it’s not exactly slam-bang. Lots of pensive looks, lots of staring into the middle dis tance. Lots of turning it over in one’s own head. Which isn’t exactly that fun a thing to watch a guy do, once Robin Williams has left. Me, though? I was transfixed . I sidled up to the window and Harlan looked over. “I’m just vamping now,” he said. “Something will happen while Chris’ wife is making French toast.” So right then I learned an important lesson: you point the ski tips down the mountain and you kick yourself off. Some folks are gonna be better than others, have more style or a tighter turn. Some are gonna be medal win ners and others are gonna hurt themselves. But everyone who makes the run shares something in common: they’ve got the wind in their hair. A year or so after that , I started my weekly review zine, Planet Lar. In the mission statement in the first issue, I wrote, in my usual bombastic style: “There is only one George Lucas. There is only one John Byrne. There is only Harlan Ellison, although the world would be a better place with more than one. There is only one Sonny. Only one Cher. Only one each of Siskel and Ebert. There is only one Larry Young.” Sent those acetate-covered monstrosities all around, to every big-shot in comics and entertainment I

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